Copyright Salt Lake City Deseret News
The father of a teen who police suspect is involved in the fatal shooting of a Ben Lomond High School student on Oct. 7 was charged Wednesday with obstruction of justice and accused of lying about his son’s departure to Mexico after the shooting. Fernando Renteria, 41, of Roy, was charged in 2nd District Court with two counts of obstruction of justice, a second-degree felony. Renteria is the father of a teen who is allegedly connected to the shooting of 16-year-old Mason Caballero, court documents state. However, he is not the father of Isaias Emanuel Carranza, 16, who was arrested on Oct. 11 and is being charged as an adult in 2nd District Court in Ogden with aggravated murder in the killing, and also faces 28 other counts. According to the charges, Renteria helped his son escape to Las Vegas and then lied to police about his whereabouts. On the afternoon of Oct. 8, a day after the shooting, Roy police, Ogden police and the Ogden Metro SWAT team were serving a search warrant at a home in Roy. During the visit, a deputy with the Weber County Sheriff’s Office learned that the mother of the household, who was identified in the document as Renteria’s wife, had previously been deported, court documents state. The deputy called Immigration and Customs Enforcement to check the woman’s immigration status, and learned that she had booked a flight from Las Vegas to Monterrey, Mexico, on Oct. 8, that was scheduled to depart from the airport in Las Vegas that day at 3:22 p.m., according to the charges. No one was home during the time, the affidavit said, but the SWAT commander “made note of several closets in the home that had been left open, as if the family packed items and left town,” the charging document states. A Roy police detective contacted Homeland Security and had it check the travel activity of the woman and Fernando Renteria. The detective was later informed that the woman and the teen had taken a flight from Las Vegas to Monterrey, Mexico, the charges state. The next day, Oct. 9, officers with Ogden and Roy police departments returned to the home to check for vehicles and license plates that may have been involved in traveling to Las Vegas, the charges state. This time they made contact with Fernando Renteria and another family member in the front yard of the home. When asked by police if he knew where the teen or the mother was, the charges state Renteria said no. Ogden police reached out to the Las Vegas Metro Police Department for assistance with obtaining surveillance footage from the Harry Reid International Airport, which allegedly showed the family arriving in two different cars on the morning of Oct. 8, according to the charges. Police said they believe the two vehicles were used to transport the teen suspect and his mother to the airport in Las Vegas. The footage also showed Renteria, another family member and three other people “give the mother and son hugs and the two begin to walk through the security line,” the charges state. Police also noted cellphone records that tracked movements after the shooting on Oct. 7 showed the vehicle used in the incident was dropped off at a location in Roy, where the teen suspect and another family member were both present, “showing that he picked up (the teen) directly after the homicide and provided him transportation,” according to the charges.
